


Hiraeth

by traitorhero



Category: Dishonored (Video Game), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Post-Low Chaos Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 22:39:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4037191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traitorhero/pseuds/traitorhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was something to be said about how unsurprised he was to find himself chained in some dank, dark hole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughterofcrows](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=laughterofcrows).



There was something to be said about how unsurprised he was to find himself chained in some dank, dark hole. Corvo lifted his head slightly, spying the men with drawn swords off to his sides. He couldn’t stop the small twitch of his lips as he noted the lack of Overseers and their infernal music boxes. It would be the work of moments for him to break out of the chains that held him, and by the time they noticed, he would be long gone from their sight.

A sharp, shooting pain in his left hand, the one which bore the Outsider’s Mark, made him gasp and look down at it. He gritted his teeth to stop any sound of pain that could have escaped his lips as green light flashed on the palm of his hand. The very air seemed to crackle around it like a storm on a summer’s day, even as Corvo clenched his fist to hide the worst of the light. As he did, he noticed _his_ Mark gleaming slightly, a green tinge to the usual golden glow.

A door banged against stone, and Corvo looked up for the first time, fully taking in the area where he was being held. It was built out of quarried stone, something that he had only seen in Morley. The mortar between the stones was also thicker in some places than others, as if the stonemasons hadn’t had the use of precise levels, and had hacked the stone out as well as they could.

Two women stepped into the room, one wearing a sword, while the other held herself as if her entire body was a weapon. Corvo straightened his back, his eyes narrowing as the darker haired one stepped forward. The guards sheathed their swords as she drew in closer to him. He fought the urge to look over his shoulder as she stepped behind him, the muscles in his neck tensing as he fought to keep his calm.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” she asked, her words stirring the hair that had fell out from behind his ear. Corvo took in a deep breath through his nose, tamping down the fear that the question lit in him. His eyes darted around the room again, counting the men who were present. He caught the eye of the woman in the purple hood, who returned his calculating gaze with one of her own.

“The Conclave is destroyed; everyone who attended is dead,” the dark haired woman continued, walking around to face him again. “Except for you.”

Corvo dropped his head slightly, pondering the words she had said. There was a trace of an accent in her voice, but he couldn’t place it. It definitely did not lend itself to Morley, even though the surroundings would suggest it. He had definitely never heard of a Conclave, or even the word itself bandied about in the circles he tread. Emily had certainly made no mention of it before he set off on his journey for Serkonos.

A gift for his years of service, she had said, before kissing him on the cheek and wishing him safe travels back to her. Not that he had to worry about the hands that she was in. On her twelfth birthday Emily had selected her own Lord Protector, and Corvo had helped the young man adjust to moving through the court in the last few years. The travel had been meant to enforce the idea of retirement on him, although Emily had assured him that he would always have a place at her court. He had accepted it for what it was, kissing her on the top of her head and promising that he would find his way back to her safely.

“Explain this,” the woman said, grabbing his wrist and pulling it above his head, obviously annoyed by his lack of response. Corvo hissed between his teeth as the green light escaped through his fingers, and making the Mark on the back of his hand glow even brighter. The woman appeared not to notice the Mark, focused as she was on the green light from his palm.

“I can’t,” he said.

And he couldn’t. Corvo had lived with the Outsider’s Mark for nigh on six years, and had come to expect what it would and could do at the most inopportune moments. More than once he had thought of wearing gloves, especially when in the presence of the Overseers, but none of them had ever brought up the visible Mark when he attended meetings on behalf of his Empress.This green light, however, was like nothing he had ever experienced.

“What do you mean, you can’t?” the sword-bearing woman asked.

“I don’t know what that light is,” he said, trying to differentiate between the Mark on his hand and the green light on his palm. “Or how it got there,” he added.

By the Void, he wasn’t even sure how he had ended up here. He had been travelling to Serkonos, of that much he was certain. There had been a storm, and a cold, clear voice that he would recognize even in his most pleasant dreams-

“You’re lying!” the woman snarled, her hands pushing down on his shoulders and making the manacles that chained him to the floor bite uncomfortably into his skin.

“We need him, Cassandra,” the purple hooded woman said, her hands pushing insistently at the now-named woman’s shoulder. Cassandra let herself be forced back with an annoyed huff.

“What now?” Corvo asked. If they meant to kill him, he could easily use the Mark to escape. But something about this whole situation was making him uneasy, like the fact that he couldn’t remember how he came to be chained in a cell.

“Do you remember what happened?” the hooded woman asked, turning towards him. “How this began?”

Corvo shook his head slightly, trying to think back to the last thing he remembered. There had been a storm, lightning crashing through the sky as rain pounded the deck. The mast had split, falling onto the deck and pinning a seaman. He had rushed over, trying to pull it up when he saw the wave, and then-

He had been in the Void. And then he had been somewhere else. Running.

Corvo blinked, his brow furrowing as he contemplated that thought. Why would he have been running? If he had needed to get away he could have Blinked away. The thought made his head hurt, like someone had reached in and taken something away, and he was only able to view pieces of a whole. His thoughts went to a black eyed deity, but he cast the idea away as soon as it came into being. If there was one rule that the Outsider adhered to, it was that he didn’t interfere. Or, at least, didn’t interfere in ways that weren’t interesting to him.

“I- no,” he told her. She looked at him as if she knew he was hiding something from her, but tilted her head slightly. Corvo found himself thankful that she did not press the issue, since what he remembered didn’t make sense, even to himself.

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana,” Cassandra said, her hand resting lightly on the other woman’s shoulder. “I will take him to the rift.”

Corvo took note of the purple hooded woman’s name as Cassandra came and knelt in front of him. She took a key from her belt and unlocked them, grabbing his wrists and tying them together with leather ties before he could move them. He flexed his wrists, feeling how the leather gave the tiniest bit, and hid a smile. If she had thought that the ties would be enough to keep him docile, she was obviously new to the idea of being a jailor.

“What did happen?” Corvo asked as she helped him to her feet, hoping that she would divulge more information. Unlike her friend, Leliana, he had a feeling that she would be more forthcoming.

“It... will be easier to show you,” she said. She turned her back on him, obviously expecting him to follow her. Corvo raised an eyebrow, his eyes darting to the swordsmen that had stood over him earlier. She was either foolhardy, or confident that he would follow her. Hunching his shoulders slightly to disguise the fact that he was toying with the ends of the leather ties, he followed her. It would be easier to escape once they were outside and he didn’t have to worry about defending himself from sword strokes.

The dungeons that Cassandra led him out of were, if he had to guess, not meant to act as dungeons. Or perhaps he had been in the only cells that were in the place. As they walked down the hallway he spied what looked like an office, although bars did separate it from the rest of the hallway. Ducking his head to miss a low hanging chandelier, he followed Cassandra up and out of the underground area. Almost immediately he noticed a change in temperature, his skin prickling at the warmth that danced across it.

The second thing he noticed were the statues and religious idols that dotted the hall. Carved out of what appeared to be stone, perhaps a type of marble, were statues of a woman holding a bowl with a dancing flame. A few people knelt in front of the statues, heads bent in supplication. A dark chill went down Corvo’s back as he walked past them, his mind trying to connect the dots that were laid out in front of him.

The Abbey of the Everyman would never allow such heretical behaviors to exist. Not that he followed the Strictures they set forth. Having seen the corruption within their ranks and the deity that they opposed, Corvo had decided to throw his lot in with the Outsider. In the past he might have feared reprisal from the Overseers, but after having two heretical leaders, Emily had all but banished them from the Isles. It was only because of their significance to the wellbeing of the Empire that she had not, but it was not hard to see that their order would fall within her lifetime. If not by her hand.

A soldier opened the door for them as they approached, a cold wind blowing snow in as they stepped outside. Corvo held up his hands to give his eyes time to adjust to the bright light of day, even as his boots crunched on the frost-frozen ground. While he had seen snow before, he had never seen mountains such as the ones in the distance. Blinking his eyes as he lowered his hands, he found them drawn to the green hole that seemed to reach from the sky to the ground.

“We call it the Breach,” Cassandra told him. “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

Corvo forced his eyes down away from it to look at her.She met his eyes easily, with a soldier’s gaze, catching every movement that he made.

“Explosions cannot open up passage into the Void,” Corvo said, even as the sight drew his eyes again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her look at him strangely.

“This one did,” she told him. “Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.”

A retort was on his lips about how everything originated from the Void, and one day the abyss would swallow everything again, but a sharp pain from his left hand forced him to his knees. He let out a startled grunt, and pressed it against the cold ground, hoping to alleviate the pain by numbing it. Cassandra knelt next to him as he pressed it into the ground, a small measure of concern in her eyes as he breathed deeply. The ground underneath his palm softened slightly, as if a small fire had been struck where he rested his hand. The thought was disturbing, and he lifted his hand to look at the new mark. The green light there flickered like flames for an instant, before settling into his skin and leaving a thin, green-tinged, scar.

“Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads,” Cassandra told him, a measure of compassion in her voice. Corvo choked slightly, his eyes darting to the black Mark on the back of his hands before he realized she was talking about the mark on his palm. She let out a small sigh, “And it is killing you.”

If he weren’t still caught off guard by the pain that flared from his palm, Corvo might have laughed. Six months in Coldridge prison hadn’t killed him. The Rat Plague hadn’t killed him. And now some mark on his palm was supposed to be able to?

“It may be the key to stopping all of this,” Cassandra continued, “but there isn’t much time.”

He could see how much his response would mean to her. Sighing, Corvo closed his eyes and tilted his head back. She was asking for his trust, even as her’s depended on his answer. There were few people whom he would place his trust in, and that number had dwindled significantly after he had been betrayed by the so-called Loyalist Conspiracy.

“Understood,” Corvo told her.

“Then-”

“My blade is yours, until this is ended,” he told her.

She looked surprised at the what he said. Corvo fought against rolling his eyes, pushing to his feet as she did the same. The only options that she had presented to him were helping her or a probable death. And while he could possibly escape, the weather wherever they were would pose a problem. As they walked through the little hamlet, Corvo glanced down at his clothes, surprised to find himself wearing something different than he had when he was on the ship.

“Did someone change my clothes?” he asked Cassandra. She looked over her shoulder at him and gave him a sharp nod. This time Corvo did roll his eyes. “What happened to what I was wearing? And my belongings?”

“They’re being dried,” Cassandra said, annoyance creeping into her tone. “They were soaked through with seawater.”

“And we’re not on the coast.”

“No, we are not,” she agreed, pulling up short. Corvo stopped and gave her a pleasant smile when she turned around to glare at him. “Do not think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

Corvo raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Cassandra huffed, but turned her back on him again. Her annoyance had blinded her to the fact that he had grasped one of the ends of the leather ties. It was a simple matter to twist it until the knot was hidden by his hands.

A piece of rotten fruit missed his head by mere inches, and forced Cassandra to fall into step beside him. As they walked through the village, more and more people seemed to appear, grim faces watching both of them. Cassandra rested her hand lightly on the pommel of her sword, which seemed to discourage any more pieces of fruit being thrown at him. He could have told her not to bother, having gotten used to what people would throw at him when he was transported to and from Coldridge Prison for his trial, but the fact that she had done it made her rise a bit in his estimation.

“They have decided your guilt,” Cassandra told him in a low voice. “They need it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Corvo reiterated. Cassandra shook her head slightly, as if she was unsure of how to respond. “Recently,” he amended, which startled a snort out of her.

“Regardless, they are not overly fond of you,” she said as they walked out of a wooden gate.

The view from the Chantry, which he assumed was the building Cassandra had led him out of, was dwarfed in comparison by the view outside the gate. He stopped for a moment and stared at the lake, which looked to be completely frozen. More surprisingly, the waterfalls were frozen over into deadly icicles twice the size of a grown man.The Isles, he knew, were far too warm, even on Morely, to have frozen ice of that quantity, even in the mountains. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature began to settle in his bones as he acknowledged the truth.

He was nowhere on the Isles.

If he had to hazard a guess, as Cassandra tugged him forward, towards a deserted footpath, he might be on the Pandyssian continent. It would certainly explain the strange customs of the people, and the absence of the Abbey. Even so, he was farther inland than he would have expected if he had washed up in the aftermath of the storm. Assuming that the boat had indeed sunk. The hole in his memory around that was troubling, but not for the foremost reasons.

He had heard the stories, and seen some of the results of those people who traveled to the Pandyssian continent. While Sokolov’s brilliance had always separated him from the other philosophers and inventors, his mad genius had only fully been realized after he returned from his expedition to the Far Continent. His works, often brilliant, had become masterpieces, and he completed them within days of their development. Corvo was hesitant to compare the man to Piero, even with their similarities in temperament. Piero’s genius, although his own, was augmented by the visits from the Outsider in his dreams, although the man had no knowledge of it.

And the warning story for any travel to the Far Continent was Granny Rags, whom he had had the misfortune of meeting while trying to keep his- Emily alive and safe from the men who sought to use her as their puppet. Her madness had been traced to travel to Pandyssia in her youth, although Corvo had his doubts about that, after his discovery of her devotion to the Outsider. Even so, madness had come upon many of the men and women who had travelled to the continent, leaving them but shadows of their former selves.

He had heard stories of the small towns that were occasionally set up on the coastal regions of the continent. The people who lived there were often the people who had a fascination with the place, or who had disregarded the people who had gone mad in their lust for riches. The towns never lasted long, often only staying for one or two seasons before madness or malady took the people who lived within it. One town, as record had it, had been savaged by rats, which ate through the bodies and only left gnawed bones in their wake. Having seen the Rat Plague, and the strange rats that carried it, Corvo could say that the myth surrounding that town was most likely true.

But, from what Cassandra had told him, they were nowhere near the coast, as made obvious by the mountains and frozen lake. And he had been on the ocean, headed towards Serkonos before he had come to be here.Again, Corvo attempted to remember what had happened, only to have the same images and feelings come across his mind. It was infuriating, and he turned his anger towards the leather around his wrists.

As they passed through the trees, Corvo managed to undo the worst of the knot that Cassandra had tied around his wrists. Rather than get rid of the ties, he let them sit loosely on his hands.

“The Conclave was hers,” Cassandra said, as they approached another wooden gate, although this one was set in stone. Corvo shook himself out of his reflections, paying attention to what she said. “It was a chance for peace between Mages and Templars.”

He could infer the capital letters from the way she seemed to pause before saying the words. Unlike Chantry, which he had assumed to be similar to Abbey, these two words seemed to be more in the vein of Lord Protector or Overseer. Words meant to describe an occupation, rather than a title from a family line, like Empress. And apparently the two were at war with each other.

Corvo resisted the urge to rub a thumb over the back of his left hand. Magic was not unfamiliar to him, even though he prefered a sword or dagger to using the so-called gifts given to him by the Outsider. If the two groups were at war with each other, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to get caught up in it.

“She brought their leaders together, and now they are dead,” Cassandra said. “We lash out like the sky, but we must think beyond ourselves, as she did.”

Corvo nodded absently, noticing the strain in her voice. He took in the sword at her hip and the design inlaid on her breastplate, and almost winced at the conclusion he came to. He had gone through the stages of grief while in Coldridge Prison, and knew the tiredness that was coming through Cassandra’s voice was not from simple weariness. The grief was edged with guilt, as if she could have stopped her Divine’s death.

He missed her next words as he turned over what her job would have been in relation to this now dead holy woman. The telltale sound of someone drawing a knife made him tense. The men who stood next to the door did not move to his defense as Cassandra pulled his hands up, obviously intending to slice through the bindings. He let them fall off of his wrists instead, holding the ties out to her as she stared at him in shock.

“It seemed a waste of good leather,” he said. Cassandra narrowed her eyes and accepted the ties, tucking them into her belt.

“I can promise a trial after this,” she told him.

“With people who are looking to place the blame on me?” Corvo asked, raising a hand to rub his jaw. By the amount of hair present, he reckoned he had been unconscious for a few days, rather than hours as he had initially suspected. When he looked up at her, he couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his face at her bewildered look.

“I promise-” she began to say, but stopped when Corvo raised a hand.

“Don’t lie to me,” he said, the smirk dropping from his face. “Anyway, I have to still be here if there’s to be a trial.”

“Are you threatening something?”

“I could have been gone five minutes ago,” Corvo said. “I honor my oaths. Do not make one that you don’t know you can keep.”

“Come, then,” Cassandra said, a frown settling on her face as she turned from him. Corvo rubbed his wrists as they walked across the stone bridge. He spied a well made dagger hanging from a weapons stand, but tempered the urge to take it. His keeper obviously did not trust him, and adding a weapon into the mix was just asking for more problems to arise. “There’s a rift not far from here. We can test your mark on that.”

“Test it?” Corvo asked, even as he continued to follow her. “You don’t know what it will do?”

“No one knows anything in these times,” she replied. “But we should test your mark on something smaller than the Breach itself. We need to know if it can close them. Then we can attempt the Breach.”

“So I’m your test subject, then?”

“Unless someone else steps out of the Fade, yes.”

Corvo sped up so that he was equal with her, just fast enough to catch a slight smirk on her lips. It vanished quickly when he fell into an easy step next to her, and her hand rested easily on her sword’s hilt. As he opened his mouth to say something, pain flared in his hand again, making him stumble and fall to the ground. Corvo bit through his lip, grimacing at the taste of blood, and forced himself to his feet again. Cassandra watched him warily as he swirled the blood and saliva in his mouth for a moment before spitting it out onto the snow.

“The pulses are coming faster now?”

“Yes,” Corvo said. He looked down at his hand, where the green light seemed to flare brighter before receding. He shook his hand slightly before taking hold of it with his other hand. Turning it over so that the back was visible, he ran his gloved fingers over the Outsider’s Mark. Nothing seemed different about it, for which he was  thankful. He debated trying to use it for a moment, but his caution overwhelmed his desire.

“Is everything all right?” Cassandra asked, the barest edge of concern in her voice. Corvo dropped his hand and gave her a quick nod. Her eyes darted down to his hand, before going to his face. She seemed to come to a decision, and gestured for him to follow her again.

“You said the Breach was a rift into the world of demons?” Corvo asked, matching her quick gait.

“Demons and spirits, yes,” Cassandra said. “The larger the rifts grow, the more demons we will see. Unless you are accustomed to seeing them already?”

The question seemed pointed, in a way that he could sense was important. As far as he was concerned, there were no such things as the demons or spirits that she mentioned. Those people that had caused harm in their lives were said to drift there until the Void devoured them. They could not re-enter the world and wreak havoc. Unless one considered the Outsider to be such a thing, as the Abbey did.

“No,” Corvo answered honestly. “I’ve never met a demon.”

Cassandra seemed to relax at that, a slight tension melting out of her shoulders. Corvo debated asking her about why she was asking, but fell on a different question.

“This blast,” he said, “how do you suppose I survived it?”

Cassandra shook her head slightly. “They said you... stepped out of a rift, then fell unconscious.”

“That’s helpful.”

“They also said there was a woman behind you. No one knows who she was.”

A missile from the sky stopped him from replying, shattering the bridge they were on as if it was made of glass rather than stone. Stumbling as the bridge collapsed underneath him, Corvo tumbled down the masonry, coming to rest on a frozen river. He grunted, pain from his back and cheek letting him know that those areas were bruised, but not broken.

As he moved to get to his feet he saw another missile, similarly colored to the Breach, rocket from the sky and hit the ice. The impact made the frozen water creak, and Corvo looked at his feet for any cracks that would mean it would give way under him. An inhuman growl made him look up at where the green thing had crashed, only to see a monstrous creature emerge from the ominous smoke.

“What the fuck is that?” he shouted at Cassandra. Looking at her, he saw a line of blood streaming down from her scalp. She glanced at him, but drew her sword and shield and planted herself in front of him.

“Stay behind me!” she snarled, before charging at the thing.

As she did, he noticed another cloud of ominous smoke, and another one of the monsters drew itself out of it. Casting his eyes around for a weapon, he spied a two daggers held in the hands of a man crushed by the fallen bridge. Taking the weapons from his still warm hands, Corvo faced the monster, the dagger in his left held in a guard position while he reversed the other in his right hand.

The creature had no finesse for battle, swinging it’s hands together against his left side. Corvo deflected the strike, feeling the metal sink into flesh and tear. The monster crashed onto the ice, which creaked but did not break. Taking the opening, Corvo plunged the dagger in his right hand down, feeling it sink into the creature. It gave an inhuman wail and vanished into smoke. Unsure of what had happened, Corvo returned to his guarded position and made his way over to Cassandra.

Corvo jumped back slightly as she turned to face him, her own opponent dissolving into smoke. When she saw the blades in his hands, she turned the point of her blade on him.

“Drop your weapon,” she commanded. Corvo held his hands loosely by his sides, keeping hold of the blades in an easy grip.

“I’d rather not die if one of those things distracts you again,” he replied easily. “And I gave you my word that I would see this through.”

She looked down at the blades in his hands, noticing the ichor that dripped from the right one.  Sighing, Cassandra gave him a short nod and sheathed her weapon.

“You’re more honorable than I expected,” she said.

Corvo laughed shortly. “Not something I hear everyday. Lead on?”

Setting off once more, Corvo mused on his situation. His thoughts kept coming back to where he was, and how he got there. From what Cassandra had said, they were nowhere near the sea. His own memories on the matter were useless, with the same blue, then brown-green environment, and running. The back of his hand tingled, and he fought the urge to rub the Outsider’s Mark. Cresting a rise, Corvo saw more of the strange looking creatures, and from Cassandra’s hiss of displeasure, they were of the same manner as the ones they had fought before.

Thankfully, the two of them had seemed to develop a rapport, at least while on the field. Cassandra working on battering their enemies defenses, while he snuck behind them and made lethal cuts with his daggers. As they walked up a stone-hewn stairway, the green light on his palm began to flare again.

“We’re getting close to the rift,” Cassandra said, gesturing to the light flaring from his palm. Like him, she was spattered with the ichor that the creatures seemed to have instead of blood. It gave off a scent not unlike sulphur, but did not burn through the clothes themselves, for which he was thankful. Even with the occasional skirmishes from the creatures Cassandra called demons, the cold air had begun to bite. For her part, Cassandra seemed not to notice, and Corvo chalked it up to her being a native of the area.

“What’s that noise?” Corvo asked, huffing slightly as they jogged up the stairway. It had been harder for him to breathe the longer the fight went on, but he had begun to chalk it up to the continuous fighting that they had been under.

“Soldiers,” Cassandra responded shortly, her own breath just a touch less ragged than his own. “We need to help them.”

Corvo nodded instead of replying, focusing on reaching the top of the hill. When the stairs leveled out onto a flat area, he took a deep breath, wincing when his head throbbed painfully. He followed Cassandra, who seemed to have regained her breath. Both of them drew their weapons as they came upon a group clustered around a floating green object fighting demons. The fight was quick work, with most of the creatures already half-dead from the combined work of the soldiers.

“Quickly!” a man’s voice said, grabbing Corvo’s wrist in a strong grip. “Before more come through.”

Even as Corvo tried to fight the man’s grip, something lanced out of the palm of his hand, connecting it to the rift. Just as quickly, it stopped, and he found himself listing to the side, only to be propped up by the stranger. Corvo regained his feet quickly, taking a few shallow breaths as he stood again. Turning to thank the man, he found himself distracted by the alien features of the man’s face, especially the length of his ears. Only the decency he had schooled in him from his days as Lord Protector stopped him from questioning what exactly the man was.

“What did you do?” he asked instead. The strange man hunched in on himself, making himself less of a target, before he answered.

“I did nothing. The credit is yours,” he replied. His polished accent, completely at odds with his rustic clothing, almost reminded Corvo of Piero.

“Please don’t say that,” Corvo said with a sigh. “People have enough ideas about what I apparently did already.”

“Whatever happened to open the Breach in the sky, it placed that mark upon your hand,” the man continued, an eyebrow twitching upwards as Corvo’s sigh turned into a groan. “I theorized that whatever created the mark on your hand might be able to close the rifts as well, and it seems I was correct.”

“Meaning it could close the Breach as well?” Cassandra asked, stepping towards them.

“Possibly,” the man agreed, slinging the staff that he had been using to fight across his back.

“Good to know,” another voice said. Corvo turned around, before seeing a dwarf-like man walking towards them, a crossbow strapped across his back. “Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.”

He must have seen Corvo staring, for he swept into a bow with a cheeky grin on his face. “Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”

The last part was said with a wink at Cassandra. Corvo felt like there was more to the story, but the Mark on the back of his hand itched again, making him turn around and look at where the rift had been. Cassandra and Varric began talking about something as he walked towards the epicenter of where it had been. Kneeling down, he scraped away the thin layer of snow to find a Bone Charm. His eyes furrowing, he picked it up and hooked it onto the front of his jacket, adjusting the scarf around his neck so that it was just barely visible.

“Might want to introduce yourself to our shy friend over here, Chuckles,” Varric said as Corvo walked back over to their little gathering. The strange looking man gave Corvo a bland smile, even as his eyes went to the Bone Charm that hung on his clothes.

“Solas,” he said, his icy blue eyes meeting Corvo’s for the first time. “I am pleased to see you still live.”

“He means he kept that mark from killing you as you slept,” Varric interjected.

“My thanks,” Corvo said. “Are you a scientist, then?”

“Solas is an apostate,” Cassandra said, cutting Solas off before he could reply. Corvo saw the man’s jaw tense at the interruption, but it was gone so fast that he almost doubted having seen it at all.

“An apostate?”

“A mage who no longer has ties, or was never tied to the Chantry’s Circles to begin with,” Solas replied, his searching gaze on Corvo again.

“We thought you might be one, at first,” Cassandra said, her eyes flitting over the landscape in case of another attack.

“Your prisoner is no mage,” Solas told her. Corvo snorted at that, making the both of them look at him.

“Go on,” he said. “I’ve been told I’m not many things.” When they stared at him as if waiting for an answer, he shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not a mage. Satisfied?”

“No,” Cassandra said. “You’ve given your word-”

She paused, her mouth half-open, before closing it rather abruptly. Varric seemed to catch something in the motion, and began to chuckle.

“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t know his name,’ he said. “I thought you researched everyone you interrogated, Seeker.”

“To be fair, it wasn’t much of an interrogation,” Corvo said, playing along with the dwarf.

“Don’t encourage him,” she bit out. Letting out a deep breath, she looked him in the eyes. “Your name, if you please.”

“Corvo,” he replied simply. She waited, as if she was expecting more, and his lips turned up at the sentiment.

“No family name?”

“I’d rather keep my family safe from you, if at all possible. After all, you did threaten to kill me.”

“She is rather bad at first impressions,” Varric agreed. “But she grows on you. Like moss. Or mold.”

“Enough!” Cassandra said. “We’ve wasted enough time. We need to get to the forward camp.”

Evidently, that was enough to galvanize Solas and Varric. Corvo found himself settling easily between the two, much to Cassandra’s consternation. They progressed much quicker towards the camp, and Cassandra tried to push them even faster once his hand began glowing again. The entire time Corvo found himself keeping a line of sight with the strange man, Solas, watching as he apparently cast spells with ease.

He had heard the stories in his youth, of witches, women who used the Black Arts to twist the world to their whims. Marked himself by the Outsider, he could see that the stories probably held a grain of truth in them, with a central woman being marked by the deity, and much like Daud, giving their followers some of their power. Solas seemed to be drawing all of his power from himself.

It was made even more clear that he was different when Cassandra tossed him a phial of blue liquid while they were battling another rift, which he drank without hesitation. Afterwards, he seemed to be able to cast magics that were beyond him just moments before. He froze two of the strange floating spirits, before shattering them with another bolt from his staff. He shouted something at Corvo, who flung his twice-marked hand at the rift, letting it tether them together for a moment before it snapped closed.

“Open the gates!” Cassandra called, already marching towards them.

Corvo hesitated for a moment, kneeling at the center of where the rift had been. Unlike the first rift, a rune lay half-out of the snow, partially melting it. Corvo picked it up, brushing off the snow and examining it. It gave off a slight hissing noise, which stopped when he ran his left hand over it, though whether it stopped for the Outsider’s Mark or the green one on his hand, he couldn’t say. He tucked it inside his shirt, ignoring the feeling of cold metal against his skin.

“What was that?” Solas asked, sidling up next to him. Corvo almost jumped in surprise, but managed to salvage his pride by standing up.

“Something interesting,” he replied. Solas raised an eyebrow at the response.

“It came from the Fade?” Solas prompted.

“Maybe as a joke from the Outsider,” Corvo said with a shrug. He froze for an instant, mentally kicking himself for the mention of the deity.

“I’ve never heard of that name in the Chantry services,” Solas said as he and Corvo moved to catch up with Cassandra and Varric.

“I’m not surprised,” Corvo said, in a voice that he hoped convey that he didn’t want to talk further about it. Solas took the hint, and dropped the subject.

“And here he is, your supposed prisoner,” a man sneered at Cassandra. “I thought he would be in chains.”

“We ran into some trouble in the valley,” Cassandra said, anger creeping into her tone.

“As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I am rescinding that choice,” the man said. “I order you to take him to Val Royeaux to face execution.”

At the threat, Corvo raised his eyes to the torn sky, hearing the small curse Varric let out behind him. Cassandra stepped towards the Chancellor, resting her gore spattered hands on his clean workspace, dripping it on the papers he had there.

“Order me?” she asked, her tone all but daring him to reply. “You’re nothing more than a clerk; a glorified bureaucrat.”

“And you’re a thug-”

“Enough,” Corvo said. He looked at the three people around the table, judging their reactions to him. “Arguing like this is getting nowhere. Who is in charge here?”

“At the moment, no one,” Leliana said. “Commander Cullen is in charge of the soldiers, but we haven’t been able to get a messenger through to him in almost a day.”

“Who else is there?” he pressed.

“Divine Justinia was in charge,” Leliana said. “Without her leadership-”

“Which is why we must elect a replacement and obey her orders on the matter,” the Chancellor said.

“Isn’t this Breach a more pressing issue than some religious figure?” Corvo asked. He heard Cassandra’s sharp intake of breath at his words, and winced internally.

“You caused the Breach!” the Chancellor spat at him.

Corvo narrowed his eyes at the man and took a step forward, his patience quickly running out. He had been able to deal with Cassandra’s anger towards him because he had seen himself in her pain. This man, however, reminded him too much of the previous High Overseers, and his pity did not extend as far as a man who saw death as a way to advance himself.

Cassandra’s arm cut him off before he could take another step towards the man. “We may be able to stop this before it’s too late, Chancellor,” she said, more calmly than Corvo would have imagined possible.

“How? Your Commander hasn’t been heard from in over a day, and the scouts we sent along the mountain path haven’t returned either.”

“If we push with the troops-” Cassandra began.

“It’s not the safest way to the Temple,” Leliana interrupted her. “Most of the casualties we’ve seen have been from that front. If we use the mountain path, we may be able to get the prisoner-”

“Corvo,” Varric said, just loud enough to be heard. Leliana nodded, taking note of the name.

“We may be able to get Corvo to the Temple with minimal trouble.”

“The scouts never returned, Leliana,” Cassandra countered. “We have no way of knowing what became of them.”

“The mountain path would keep us out of the main battle area?” Corvo asked, which made the Chancellor glare at him.

“Of course you would want to stay out of the fighting,” the man said contemptuously.

“I’d rather not have a sword shoved into my back,” Corvo retorted. “What makes you think I’d trust any of your men?”

“He’s right, Chancellor,” Cassandra conceded, raising a hand to push her hair back slightly. She made a face at the gore that transferred to her skin, but dropped the hand to her pommel. “Our men are already distrustful of him, if not blaming him for the Divine’s death. But as of right now, he is our only hope of closing the Breach. We’ll take the mountain path.”

A small curl of satisfaction curled in his chest before the mark on his palm flared on his hand. Gritting his teeth, he forced his hand behind his back, straightening his shoulders to hide anything that would give it away. A cough from behind him made Corvo look over his shoulder. Varric raised and eyebrow and looked at his hand, which was just about eye-level for the dwarf.

“You okay?” he asked quietly while Cassandra gave Leliana some instructions.

“Not the worst pain I’ve ever experienced,” Corvo said out of the side of his mouth. “But it has dragged on quite a bit longer than I would like.”

“I can imagine,” Varric said.

“Follow me,” Cassandra said over her shoulder.

Shaking his hand slightly, and pleased when it didn’t emit any more green light, he did so. To his surprise, Solas and Varric joined them, making the climb up the mountain more enjoyable. The mining tunnels they had to pass through were less so.

“How the hell did they get in here?” Corvo shouted as he blocked one of the demon’s swings and sank a blade into its hide.

“Do demons get cold?” Varric asked in reply. “They’re demons. They get everywhere.”

“Well, I would appreciate being able to walk more than twenty feet without stumbling into one,” Corvo told him, stabbing the demon he was fighting underneath what he assumed was its chin.

As he watched it dissolve, Cassandra shoved him to the ground. As he opened his mouth to shout at her, he saw her take a bolt of magic on her shield, exactly where his head had been moments before. Getting to his feet, he snuck behind the floating demon and sunk his daggers into its back. Wiping his hand across his brow, he nodded at her, looking over their small battlefield for any more attackers. Seeing none, he strode towards the exit from the tunnels.

The bodies around the entrance weren’t a surprise, much as he wished they would be. Cassandra knelt next to one of the bodies, taking off her glove and pressing it against the dead woman’s skin.

“She’s been dead for less than an hour,” she said, replacing her glove.

“You only sent four scouts, Seeker?” Varric asked, surprise coloring his tone.

“No,” she replied, frowning. “They would have sent a small group. They aren’t all here.”

“Perhaps they died closer to the Temple?” Solas put forth. “These ones may have been running back to safety.”

“Maybe we’ll find the rest on our way down,” Varric said. “There’s still a bit of ground to cover between here and what’s left of the Temple.”

Cassandra grunted, and they moved forward. As they got closer to the edge of the hill, the mark on his palm began to throw off light again. Rather than say anything, Corvo sped up, hoping that it didn’t herald worse things to come. Of course, the world did like to spit in his face. Rounding the bend of the stone pathway, they spied a group of soldiers clustered around a rift, facing off against more of the floating demons.

“That answers that question,” Varric muttered, lining up a shot with his crossbow and letting it loose to spear the creature.

By the time they reached the rift another group of demons had appeared. With their reinforcement, the soldiers rallied, and the new creatures fell fast. Knowing what was required, Corvo stretched his hand towards the rift, and it snapped closed, leaving no trace that it had been there.

“You are becoming quite proficient with that,” Solas commented as Cassandra checked on the scouts.

“Let’s hope it works on the big one,” Varric said, tugging an arrow out of the ground. Corvo grunted his agreement, bending down to check if this rift had dropped anything.

**_“Having fun, Corvo?”_ **

Corvo jerked back at the words, falling flat on his back. His eyes went to Varric and Solas, both of whom looked at him as if he had grown a second head. Shrugging off their looks, he bent forward again, scraping the snow off stone. Finding nothing, he rose, just in time to hear Cassandra’s remark.

“Thank our prisoner, Corvo. He was the one who insisted we come this way.”

He bit his tongue instead of arguing that she had been the one to decide, accepting the thanks that the scout gave him. He fell back next to Varric as Cassandra told the scout to head back towards the village they had come from, and watched as the dwarf loaded his crossbow.

“How did you manage the automatic fire on your crossbow?” Corvo asked. Varric looked at him askance, obviously surprised at the question.

“Couldn’t tell you,” he answered. “I found her in Darktown being used by someone who obviously didn’t know how to treat her right. Bianca’s been with me ever since.”

“You named your crossbow Bianca?”

“Story for another time,” Varric said, breaking into a light jog as Cassandra set off again. “If we survive this, maybe I’ll tell you.”

“So assured of my demise, are you?”

“Other way around, actually,” Varric said with a dry chuckle. “I’ve seen some crazy shit, and crazier people surviving it. I’ve got a feeling you’re one of those people.”

“You have no idea.” Corvo replied, falling silent as they caught up with his jailor.

As they came closer to the site, Corvo had to stop and look up at the spires of black rock that crossed the sky. Green light, similar to what came from his hand, raced through the rock, giving it an eerie glow. Varric pushed at his elbow, and he began to move again.

The bodies he had expected when Cassandra had said something about the blast. He had not expected them to be burned corpses, frozen in horrific forms of terror, tearing at their faces. Thankfully the fires had destroyed any recognizable features, and even still burned on some, giving them a skeletal appearance rather than a human one. Still, he stepped around the bodies carefully, waiting for one of them to jump at him.

Walking through what used to be a hallway, he came upon the rift that lead to the Breach, and marveled at the sight of it. It was at least the height of a rooftop, and hovered in the middle of the former Temple, having scoured everything but the barest of stones in its path. He heard Varric’s muttered curse, and felt an accord with him. This went beyond even what was possible in the Isles.

“The Breach is a long way up,” Varric said under his breath.

“How exactly am I supposed to reach that?” Corvo agreed as Cassandra greeted Leliana.

“Beats me, Shaggy,” Varric said.

“Shaggy?” Corvo said, looking down at the dwarf.

“Your hair,” he supplied. He scrunched his nose, then shook his head. “No, you’re right, doesn’t really fit you.”

“Are you ready to end this?” Cassandra asked, coming to stand next to them.

“If you have a plan to get me up there, then yes,” Corvo said.

“No. This rift was the first, and it is the key,” Solas told them. “Seal it, and perhaps we seal the Breach.”

Corvo nodded, heading towards down the still present stoneworks. It surprised him how much of the masonry was still usable. He would have expected that the blast would have ruined the foundations, making the entire site unusable, but it seemed as if pockets of stability still existed.

_“Now is the hour of our victory.”_

“What was that?” Cassandra asked, drawing her sword and looking around them.

“At a guess, the one who created all this,” Solas answered.

“So, not me,” Corvo said under his breath, gaining a smirk from Varric.

The dwarf’s smirk quickly turned to a frown when he saw some weird glowing red rocks. He and Cassandra began to talk about “red lyrium” the apparent name for it, and from the way they were talking about it, Corvo got the idea that it was bad news. As they walked closer to the crater, a woman’s voice called out, echoing around them.

_“Someone, please, help me!”_

“That was the Divine’s voice,” Cassandra said as they stepped down into the crater.

_“What’s going on? Where am I?”_

Corvo jumped at the sound of his own voice. As Cassandra looked at him, time seemed to slow down, until it stopped completely. Corvo’s eyes tracked over the crater, unsurprised when the world itself bent to a different order than it was used to. Like ashes from a fire, the Outsider materialized in front of him, the corners of his mouth barely turned up to show his satisfaction with what was going on.

 ** _“Did you think you were destined to die at sea, Corvo?”_** the Outsider asked, stepping towards his disciple. **_“Drowned and lost, except for the creatures that would feast upon your bones? Such a fate was never meant for one like you.”_**

“Where have you taken me?” Corvo asked. The Outsider raised an eyebrow. It was rare that Corvo would vocalize his questions to the Outsider.

 ** _“Death would have suited you ill,”_ ** he mused, leaning closer to Corvo. **_“And so, as before, I decided to make things more interesting. This place has never known me, or my touch. The gods that ruled it have long since gone, abandoning all but their most favored, skulking like wolves around a dying fire. And yet now one seeks to reclaim those titles, only to be blessed in fire, rage, and blood.”_**

“The Pandyssian Continent?” Corvo pressed. The Outsider chuckled, laying a hand on Corvo’s chest, making the rune under his clothes heat to almost unbearable temperatures.

 ** _“Forget the Isles, Corvo,”_** the deity said. **_“They are lost to you.”_**

Corvo felt his heart tighten in his chest. If what the Outsider was saying was true, there was no way for him to get back to Emily. She would assume he died at sea, and mourn him in custom. He took a shuddering breath, then looked dead in the Outsider’s black eyes.

“Emily,” he said. “Is she safe? Will she remain so?”

 _ **“Emily will be safe for all her days,”**_ the Outsider said. **_“A man who once wronged her will protect her from the shadows, until his dying day, taking a bullet that was meant for her. In his last words, he will beg her forgiveness, and smile when he dies.”_**

“Why am I here?” Corvo asked, weariness entering his tone.

 _ **“Your appearance here was heralded by no one, even as you stumbled onto a plot years in the making,”**_ the Outsider said, stepping away from him.

The deity looked pensive for a moment, before a wry smile stretched across his pallid face. He raised his hands to waist height, and two objects appeared in them. One was the black mask that he had worn while avenging Jessamine and rescuing Emily, which he had left behind in Dunwall. Corvo took it tentatively, running his hands over the metal. He hooked it onto his belt, and looked to the second object the Outsider was presenting him.

The Heart, for he could never bring himself to give it the proper name, rested there, silent and dead looking. He reached out and took it, a small smile crossing his face when it gave a small thump in his hand. He moved the scarf around his neck and tucked the Heart inside his jacket, right next to his own. It thumped once as he settled it, only to fall silent once again.

 _ **“I wonder what you will bring to this world,”**_ the Outsider told him. **_“Will you let chaos devour it, or will you save it from itself?”_**

Corvo bit his tongue as time sped up again, and Cassandra grabbed his arm. She spun him to face her, but her face had a wary hope on it.

“That was your voice,” she said. “Most Holy called out to you-”

As if sparked by her words, the mark on Corvo’s palm began to spark, and the world around them shifted. A hazy green sheen seemed to settle over everything, and an image laid itself over it. An older woman was suspended in the air, her arms flung to either side. It was obvious that she was struggling against them, but was prevented from any movement. A shadowed figure stood over her, its hand held out to the side.

Cassandra and the others let out gasps when Corvo suddenly appeared in the picture. Corvo looked at the picture of himself, taking in his water soaked appearance and the stumbling nature of his walk.

_“What’s going on here? Where am I?”_

_“Run while you can. Warn them!”_ the elderly woman called out to this other version of him.

 _“We have an intruder,”_ the shadowed figure said, pointing at him. _“Kill him. Now!”_

The scene vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving those who witnessed it with confusion and awe on their faces. Cassandra came out of it the quickest, her grip on Corvo’s arm becoming almost unbearable.

“You were there!” she accused him. “Who attacked-”

“I don’t remember!” he shouted back at her. “How many times do I need to tell you that?”

“Should have spun a story,” Varric said, trying to diffuse the situation.

“Echoes,” Solas said, having stepped closer to the rift while they yelled. “The Fade bleeds into this place, making memories of what happened visible.”

“Then the Divine, she could still be alive?”

“I do not know,” Solas told Cassandra, a measure of pity in his voice. “What I do know is that this rift is not sealed, but it is closed, albeit temporarily.”

“So, what, we open the damn thing up again?” Varric asked. Solas tilted his head towards him in acknowledgement. “Of course, of course,” the dwarf groaned. “Why did I even think it would be something simple?”

“However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side,” Solas cautioned.

“Demons,” Cassandra spat. “When you are ready, open the rift. We will stand ready.”

Corvo nodded, paying little attention to the soldiers who swarmed the site as he stepped towards the rift. The mark on his palm began to pulse, and without warning jerked his hand up, tethering it to the rift. Surprised, Corvo yanked it away, allowing a beam of green light to shoot out of it, coalescing to form a giant being. If that was a demon, Corvo knew he needed to learn more about the things in this world, since he had been calling everything that came out of the rifts by that title.

“Now!” Cassandra shouted.

A hail of arrows flew from the higher points of the ruined temple, only to be smacked out of the air by the demon. It chuckled, a low noise that sounded like gravel. Corvo drew his daggers, and spurred on by Cassandra’s charge towards the beast, joined the fight.

The demon was more powerful than anything they had faced on the way to the ruins. As the fight went past the five minute mark, and the blows they scored on the monster did nothing, Corvo retreated next to Solas. The strange looking man looked at him, then gestured to the rift with his free hand, the other spinning his staff above his head with ease.

“Use the rift to strip its defenses,” Solas told him. “It’s coating itself in magical energy, making it impossible for our attacks to do any damage.”

Corvo gave him a short nod, stretching his hand towards the rift once more. This time the rift seemed to break off contact, energy snapping back towards it and sending the demon to its knees. Corvo grunted, happy at how well it had worked, only to pause as the monster got back to its feet, a ball of what looked like lightning in its hands. Cassandra, her face hidden behind her shield, didn’t see it aiming it at her, and Corvo saw that it wouldn’t have enough time to get out of the way.

The world flew past him as he blinked to her, wrapping his free arm around her waist before Blinking away again. Cassandra stumbled as he let her go, her eyes automatically watching the demon as it blasted the area where she had been with lightning.

“I’ll explain later,” Corvo said, gesturing to the creature.

“Agreed,” Cassandra said, her eyes narrowing at him.

Without waiting for further encouragement, Corvo threw himself back into the battle, stabbing the demon whenever he could get an opening. Finally, the creature fell to its knees, and dissipated into the rift.

“Now!” Solas called out to him. “Seal the rift!”

Corvo stepped forward, putting his marked palm forward. Again, the rift tethered itself to him, reeling him towards itself. Corvo took a few steps forward, then held his ground. He had the distinct feeling that if he went into the rift there would be no way for him to get out again. As if it sensed this, the rift pulled even harder on him, until he dropped to his knees, his right hand scrabbling at the dirt as he fought to keep himself tied to the ground.

With a resounding snap, the rift closed, the energy rebounding upwards towards the Breach. Corvo fell to his side, gasping for air, barely hearing the heavy footfalls that came over to him. Water fell on his face, only to be hurriedly wiped off by a dry cloth. He tried to focus his eyes, weariness settling into his bones, and saw Cassandra’s worried face looking down at him. A dry huff left his mouth as she tried to say something, but her words were drowned out by another’s as his eyes slid shut.

_**“Oh yes, I will be very interested to see how this plays out.”** _

**Author's Note:**

> Hiraeth - homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed.
> 
> Originally a prompt from laughterofcrows on tumblr
> 
> May or may not come back to add more to this story eventually. It was only meant to be a short piece, but then ballooned as I started to pick at what would be different between the two universes and would cause problems.


End file.
